“It’s about time we heard from the Government about the important work that social workers and others do in protecting the most vulnerable children. In five and half years of their government, they’ve said and done very little.

“It’s critical that this public service looks at new ways of working and better early intervention programmes to deal with the root causes of rising levels of children and babies in care. However, the government is completely wrong to think that the huge cuts to children’s services in most parts of the country on their watch isn’t going to have hugely damaging consequences for vulnerable children. This is going to be their legacy: more and more children being failed.”